Seeking tips on how to record video of Apps in use

By Bryan Jones, 18 February, 2014

Forum
Accessibility Advocacy
When describing accessibility issues to sighted Developers, I am sometimes asked if I can provide a video to help show the issues I'm encountering. The Developers are not asking for a screen capture, what they want to see and hear is a video showing the face of the device with the App running, VO talking, and my fingers flicking, tapping, rotoring, etc, so that they can see and hear the accessibility issues as they are happening. Most of the Developers I deal with are like me in that they have little time or patience for sitting through unscripted meandering podcasts, so my goal is to learn to create brief two or three minute videos that quickly point out correctable accessibility issues. If anyone here has successfuly created such video, would you mind sharing your experiences? I'm particularly interested in the following items: 1. What hardware served as your video camera? 2. What software, if any, did you use in conjunction with the video hardware when recording the video? 3. What tricks did you use to hold the camera steady? Did you use a stand? 4. How did you record audio along with the video? This includes both audio of VO speaking as well as any narrative you provided during the videotaping process. 5. How did you go about editing the raw video and associated audio to prepare it for viewing by the intended audience? 6. Did you add audio after-the-fact? If yes, why and how? 7. What device(s) served as the subject in your video? 8. If the subject device was small-screen, such as an iPhone or iTouch, how did you arrange your setup in order to make the resulting video appear large enough so that sighted Users could clearly see what was taking place on the screen? 9. Any other tips on how you made your video appear polished, professional and to-the-point? Thank you in advance, Bryan

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Comments

By Tree on Friday, February 21, 2014 - 19:15

I don't really know anything about this but a screen shot might help. Tog get a screen shot of whats currently on your screen just hit the home button and the lock screen button at the same time. You will hear a camera shutter sound and then the image will be in your camera role.

By Bryan Jones on Friday, February 21, 2014 - 19:15

Hello Tree - Thank you for your response. While I do sometimes use screenshots when attempting to document the accessibility issues in an App, those screenshots unfortunately are limited in what they can show to a sighted Developer. For example, a screenshot doesn't show the interaction of a finger attempting to swipe from unlabeled item to unlabeled item nor does it capture the audible earcons and VO output associated with the process. These are the bits of other information I'm hoping to tie together with a video, so as to present a "real world" visual and audible demonstration of how a blind individual interacts with an App on a particular device and the accessibility roadblocks encountered. Thank you again for your response.